


Raindance

by JazzRaft



Series: Dark at Night [21]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 00:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15618801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: "Come inside before you catch a cold." He doesn't really mean it. He could watch Nyx stand out there for hours. Out in the rain, calling for it like no one can see him. Like it's just the two of them in the storm. Noct's more than happy with that.





	Raindance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aithilin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/gifts).



> filled for a prompt [over here](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/176780876382/nyxnoct-come-inside-before-you-catch-a-cold)

“Come inside before you catch a cold.”

The words lulled off his tongue as if intoxicated by an aged whiskey. Noctis couldn’t conjure up a single drop of urgency to pour into the command.

Not when Nyx looked like that, as bold and bodied as that figurative liquor. Not when he stood so tall and so strong, with his face turned up to the sky. Not with the rain racing down his arms in ropes, the cords of the storm coming undone in his hands. Not when he looked so serene, like the eye of the storm itself, all warm and golden and making his own sunlight with the crooked gleam of his smile.

Noctis turned his head on his arms, staring in drowsy silence out the window. Nights like these, he was sure that he was still sleeping when he opened his eyes. He was certain that he wasn’t anywhere near lucky enough to awake to a reality as sweet as his dreams like this – as perfect and surreal in its simplicity as casting fireworks to watch with foxes in faraway places.

“You should come out here,” Nyx offered with a smirk. “Help keep me warm and I won’t catch cold.”

It was so easy to tempt him. Just a cock of the head and a glint in the eye could be all it took to call Noctis to his side – often times, it took even less. Nyx could beckon him with barely a look, not even a single word spoken, and Noctis was his to command. A role reversal that Noctis desperately craved, all too eager to empty all of his responsibilities and expectations into Nyx’s calloused and careful grasp.

But tonight, he was enjoying the view too much to be bidden from his seat.

Tonight, he felt more like a sovereign in this little nook at the bottom of his kingdom than he ever did standing in the shadow of the throne high above. Surveying his dominion from within rather than without, laying amidst its foundations and allowing himself to believe that he could truly be a part of it, rather than apart from it.

He didn’t feel invincible down here, tucked in the corner of aging concrete, on the scratchy sheets of an old bed, and watching the cluttered district raze with steam beneath the rain. He felt vulnerable in a way that, for once, he didn’t feel afraid of, as he watched Nyx stretch his arms out to better embrace the downpour.

Storms used to scare him when he was younger. He used to see daemons in the black clouds that crowded his bedroom window at the top of the Citadel. He used to cower and cry beneath his blankets and hope his father would come to save him – sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t, and those nights where he didn’t were always the hardest.

Now, watching Nyx face those same storm clouds like old friends rolling into town for one night of revelry, Noctis couldn’t remember what he used to be afraid of. Instead of the horror stories his young imagination had inscribed for each thunderclap, he thought of Nyx’s whispered stories in the balmy midnight of summer.

Legends from Galahd about great guardian beasts in the sky, who brought down the rain to drive out pestilence and famine; who breathed lightning like fire to brighten the dark places where monsters tried to hide; to roar with thunder to chase them out and bring the seas higher over the shores to defend the borders from intrusion.

Noctis thought of Nyx like some archaic knight, sent by those guardians and making a stand at the zenith of the storm, wielding thunder like a blade to fight off the daemons before the rain ceased and he was taken with the clouds to the next distant horizon. It didn’t take much effort for his imagination, not when he could watch Nyx as he was, right in front of him, framed in the window like a portrait from antiquity depicting long-gone legends of yore.

“Fine,” Nyx sighed. “Guess I’ll just have to suffer the head-cold, since you won’t come out to protect me.”

“I’m not getting sick over your weird rituals,” Noctis laughed, mildly. “One of us needs to stay healthy for the other.”

“How considerate of you, shirking my cultural traditions for the good of my health.”

Noctis knew he was baiting him, the clever curl of his lips belying his mischievous intent. Noctis merely screwed up his face and waved him off. He was too cozy where he was, too content underneath the silver shroud of the rain cascading over the apartment walls.

Nyx pouted outside, his slated hair black against his tanned skin, his braids heavy with rainwater where they weighed in the deep ravines of his throat. The disappointment was short-lived, of course. He was just as gratified by Noct’s audience as he would have been by his participation. His smile lifted his eyes back to the raindrops, closing to feel the blunted punctures against the lids. He started to turn on his heel as if on the world’s axis, on a slow, inexorable spin through the storm.

He was ridiculous, out there, alone, where the rest of the city fled to the dryness of their homes. He was ridiculous and he was beautiful, and Noctis promised himself that, come the next storm to break through the Wall, he would be ready to dance with him. Down here, where his discretion was as effortlessly attained as walking unrecognized from deli to subway, no one would notice the Crown Prince twirling with a nameless glaive in the middle of a thunderstorm. No one would look twice. No one would even be out to see.

For now, he just wanted to enjoy Nyx on his own. He wanted to watch him indulge in his country’s old custom of welcoming the first rain. Nyx told him that it used to be more than this – more than a few spun circles on the sidewalk when no one was watching. There used to be festive ceremonies – in Galahd, Noctis was learning, every little event was an excuse for celebration. People used to gather when sailors came home with warnings of black clouds just out to sea. And they would dance and eat and welcome the storms after the long swathes of heat that left the land dried and cracked.

Noctis wondered if there were other little rituals happening next door, in a back lot, or on the rooftops where he couldn’t see, where Nyx’s people were welcoming the rain in what little ways they could conserve in the city’s stifling streets.

“Are you enjoying me making a fool of myself?” Nyx asked on the rise of a laugh, coming to a stop with his eyes still closed, enjoying a few last pulls of rain on his plastered clothes.

“Absolutely,” Noctis said, slowly, shamelessly letting his eyes drift over the way his soaked shirt clung to the grooves of his body.

Nyx cracked one eye open to catch his staring. He grinned and moved his hands to tease the hem of the fabric. “Would you prefer I take this off?”

“Not unless it’s in here.”

Finally, Nyx deferred to the word of his prince and came inside. Noctis was almost disappointed to see him vanish from his place of almost mythical peace, standing as tall and as indestructible as any god in the storm. With his head still loose and soft with sleep, he almost might have thought it was all a dream after all.

But then the door whined open and Nyx walked in, dark as the knight of his dreams in his rain-soaked clothes and dripping hair. Laughing at his own antics and wringing rainwater from his braids.

It was better than a dream to taste the rain on his lips when he slipped back into bed. Better to feel his damp skin on his when he pressed him to the wall, just to the side of the window. Better to chase the chill from his bones with his own fingertips, and welcome the rain in his own way.

Half-awake, in a warm bed, and getting warmer while the storm passed.


End file.
